Race for the White House

As has been seen previously in the Republican nomination battle, a televised debate once again has seemingly had a major impact on the race. It is now expected that Mitt Romney will win both the Arizona and Michigan primaries this coming Tuesday, and thus will once again be a clear frontrunner headed into the following week's Super Tuesday. The overall dynamics of the race will still favor Romney, but by then, Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich may also once again "re-emerge."

While most of the focus this week has been on Michigan, Tuesday night's CNN debate took place in Arizona and it was seen as another strong performance by Romney, but even more of a weak one for Santorum, who had surged into the national polling lead. Working to some extent as a tag team with Ron Paul, Romney was well prepared with criticisms of Santorum's record and succeeded in throwing him off guard. While the ex Pennsylvania Senator has perhaps seen his favorability ratings take a dive over some very conservative social positions, Romney instead successfully hammered away from Santorum's right on issues such as earmarks, and past support for GOP turncoat Arlen Specter.

Santorum's defense on those points was seen as quite lacking as it was noted that he "got into the weeds" in trying to explain things and in what I think was a very damaging moment, spoke of "taking one for the team" in having cast some Congressional votes against what he believed was right in principle. That is not the kind of stuff the Tea Party types like to hear and Romney was able to paint Santorum as a go along to get along Washington insider. Just the fact that so much of the debate centered on earmarks, and Arlen Specter, and Santorum having to apologize for casting various votes was a very bad sign for the person that had been leading Michigan polls and was close in Arizona a week ago.

In fact, some polls out of the two states still do show close races, while others show Romney more comfortably ahead now, especially in Arizona. The GOP Governor of the Grand Canyon State is set to officially unveil her endorsement tomorrow and the smart money is on it being Romney. The expectations games out the states have gone back and forth so much that any sort of Romney win of both states will be seen as an impressive comeback in the eyes of many, despite all the talk of Michigan having once been his home state. I still will be very interested to see if there is a large number of Democrats who wish to cause "chaos" in the state by voting for Santorum in Michigan. The conventional wisdom now is that such a movement has never really solidifed.

If by some reason, Santorum surprises most and hangs on to win, especially in Michigan, that will of course be a huge story and a great boost to his campaign. Still though, the past week has demonstrated that as the home stretch approaches, serious doubts about Santorum as a general election candidate would be likely to ultimately derail him. Romney can take a big step closer to the nomination by winning the two states on Tuesday though. That is not to say that he will cruise to victory everywhere. After Florida, I thought that could be the case (at least most places) but the whole "buyer's remorse" component and the desire for the very conservative to want to keep the process make it very possible that Romney will still lose a few more states. If Santorum has faded once again, that could leave a slight opening for Newt Gingrich in early March as it relates to the voting in his home state of Georgia and elsewhere in the South. Gingrich was seen as having a fairly strong debate performance this past week, mostly because he seemed to deliberately keep his calm and mostly just focused on attacking the Obama Administration.

Foreign policy and the currently deadly situation in Afghanistan along with conservative outrage over Obama apologies to the country's government have the potential to become a very big story. If we reach the point where the GOP finally has a de-facto nominee, differences over foreign policy, especially in the Middle East may emerge as a much discussed issue in the election.

For now though, most of the focus continues to be on the GOP race and economic and social issues. All things considered, it was a very good week for my candidate, Mitt Romney, and his other supporters are likely feeling more confident than they have been for the past three weeks.

Of course, being the front-runner leads to increased attention, as evident by the fact that Democrats have been spending money in Michigan and elsewhere, actively targeting Romney, in the hope of either damaging him or causing someone else to be nominated.

I completely concede that Mitt Romney is not a perfect politician or candidate. Nobody ever is, an I am reminded of all the brouhahas surrounding Obama and Hillary Clinton at this point four years ago, but the standards that Romney is held to by his detractors, both on the left and on the right, and in the media seems pretty excessive to me.

A couple tidbits from yesterday illustrate this as many are trying to denigrate an event held by Romney at Ford Field yesterday when he addressed the Detroit Economic Club in detail on his economic and tax program. While the event is probably going to help Romney garner additional support from Michigan conservatives, which of course was the main objective, must has been put out there in the news cycle about the fact that Romney spoke in a football stadium, that had no people in the actual stands, and that he made reference to the fact that his wife drives a couple of Cadillacs.

First of all, attemps to compare the crowd to that of Obama's 2008 convention finale in Denver are ridiculous. There was never an anticipation or attempt to come anywhere close to filling the large stadium by Romney. The orginal location of the speech was unable to accomodate the crowd that was expected to attend, so the event was moved to Ford Field, and instead of putting people in the seats, the plan was always to have them seated on the football field. Over a thousand people attended the economic address but this was not designed to be any sort of huge public event. So, despite the image of Romney speaking to a crowd on the field in an otherwise empty stadium, I am at a loss to understand why people would have been under the impression that 50,000 people were supposed to show up.

Detroit is of course the hub of the American auto industry and has played a big part in Mitt Romney's life growing up. In his remarks yesterday, he mentioned that he currently drives a couple of American cars and that his wife drives a "couple of Cadillacs." People on television and blogs went nuts over this comment and characterized it as some such of huge political gaffe which demonstrates how out of touch he is with the average person.

I refuse to believe people are that stupid. By now, most everyone knows that Mitt Romney is a wealthy man. Some people will resent that or hold that against him, but I think others just accept that reality, and maybe even consider it a good thing.

Why is it bad that they have four cars? How is that unusual for a rich couple? I think even many middle class people own more than one or two cars and while Cadillacs are nice, it's not like they are exclusively the domain of the wealthiest one percent. It's not like he was talking about having luxury foreign cars. They are American cars. Apparently, his wife drives a Cadillac in Massachusetts and has another one at the family's California house.

Why should Mitt Romney be dishonest about it or be ashamed that he bought a couple of Cadillacs for his wife in recent years? Are we really to expect that people will think less of him for that? Being affluent and buying American cars make one "out of touch?"

How many cars does Jay Leno own? How many does Oprah own? I mean, come on now!

Race for the White House

Since early January, the Republican primary and caucus contests have been coming fast and furiously, but we are now in what is effectively a two week bye period before Arizona and Michigan vote on February 28. After that, March will bring a flurry of contests from coast to coast, including "Super Tuesday."

With the campaign in a bit of a holding pattern, we are basically where we were last week, with Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney battling it out for an advantage, while a former supposed front-runner like Newt Gingrich continues to lose steam and becomes more of an afterthought.

What happens a week from this upcoming Tuesday is expected to have a major impact on the states to follow as well as the national polls. The momentum that Santorum has built as the new consensus "anti-Romney" has continued to be seen nationally and in many upcoming states. The media continue to portray him as a serious contender for the nomination, despite his severe deficit to Romney in terms of money and organization.

Santorum does not seem to be putting forth much effort into Arizona, which is a winner take all state that is still likely to be won by Romney, who maintains the overall delegate lead. Thus, the real battleground next week will be in Michigan, the state where Romney was born and raised and where his father served as Governor. Four years ago, he pulled off a hard-fought come from behind win over John McCain, the 2000 Michigan Primary winner, in a victory that for the time being saved his campaign. With that history, Romney was expected to romp to a win once again, but over the past week, polls have shown Santorum moving ahead in the Midwestern battleground, either by a small or solid margin. Unlike Arizona, delegates will be awarded proportionally, so more than one candidate will be able to add to their totals.

It would indeed be a terrible embarrassment for the native Michigander to lose the state, but if he does manage to win it, it could once again put him in a commanding position in regards to capturing the nomination. The two candidates are publicly taking different approaches. Despite his lead in the polls, Santorum is attempting to lower expectations by saying he expects to finish a strong second. Despite being down in the polls, Romney (perhaps to the chagrin of his campaign team) all but guaranteed victory in the state next week.

Mitt Romney now has the support of Michigan's Governor, as well as many other political heavyweights in the state, but Santorum has already scored impressive showings in other midwestern states, due in part to a greater appeal to social conservatives and more downscale, blue collar voters than what typically composes Romney's base. The Wolverine State has a large, organized anti-abortion movement which would seemingly gravitate towards Santorum. Additionally, it is very important to keep in mind that Michigan has an open primary and Democrats may very well cross over to participate, during a time when there is not a battle in their own party.

Back in 2000, an organized effort was made to get Democrats to vote in the Republican Primary for John McCain in an attempt to weaken or embarrass then GOP frontrunner George W. Bush. Eight years later, the liberal Daily Kos blog encouraged votes for Romney in the primary, and now, they, and perhaps many others, will have motivation to vote for Santorum in order to try to harm Romney. The conventional wisdom among most is still that Romney would be a far stronger opponent against Barack Obama and Republicans may reap what was sowed four years ago by radio host Rush Limbaugh who spoke daily of an "Operation Chaos" when after the GOP had its nominee, Republicans were instructed to take Democrat ballots to vote for Hillary Clinton in an effort to prolong the race and harm the delegate leader Obama. I thought that was a risky proposition then, as my own political party would one day be in the same circumstance, and that is indeed a very real possibility now in regards to political "retribution." There are certainly some legitimate Michigan Democrats and Independents who look at Romney's background and experience and believe he would make a good President, but a lot of outright liberals will have motivation to vote against him by casting support for a right-wing candidate they would never vote for in November.

My sense is that if Michigan were to vote this coming Tuesday, Santorum might win. However, overall support for the candidates there continue to be soft and I think much will change in the week to follow, especially with the money the Romney campaign and the non-affiliated SuperPAC will throw at negative Santorum ads, trying to drive up his negatives.

Despite the fact that the Romney campaign had yet to run a single negative ad in the campaign against Santorum (who had run such ads against both Romney and Gingrich), Santorum went on the air with a pre-emptive ad showing a Romney look alike, whom they called "Rombo" firing a large gun at cardboard cutouts of the former Pennsylvania Senator. While many think the ad is clever, I cannot think of any other ad in political history to feature violent imagery in regards to a candidate look alike in quite a way.

So in addition to battling over who has been more negative, the two leading candidates will fight over who is the better conservative. Romney is attacking Santorum over his votes in favor of increased government spending and earmarks. He will hope that the media or others are able to damage Santorum on cultural issues and how it would seriously effect electability in a general election.

While both candidates (and I) are social conservatives, Santorum's positions and rhetoric in regards to matters of personal, private behavior are things I consider to be off-putting in regards to his view of the role of government and individual freedom and liberty. This past week has featured much talk of the practicing Catholic Santorum's views in regards to birth control and contraception. The fact that he has spoken of those views in regards to public policy and how he would use the Presidency make it a legitimate issue. All of this goes far beyond the appropriate civic debate over the issue of abortion. Many people though, despite how poor the economy could be, will never vote for a candidate who would get caricatured as someone who wants to get in the way of their sex life. This would make Santorum a toxic nominee for Republicans in a general election, especially among women, in regards to how he would be portrayed as wanting to ban contraception.

There is certainly some irony in the concept that a Republican nomination may turn on a leading candidate being too far to the right on social issues, but for now, all this discussion of the "culture war" has likely been helping Santorum, as religious conservatives feel motivated to rally behind him. Thus, Romney is going to need to continue to focus on the non-conservative aspect of Santorum's legislative record on economics. When Santorum continues to attack Romney for being an unreliable and untrustworthy advocate for conservatism, it would be wise of the Romney campaign to keep pointing out that Santorum had endorsed him for the Oval Office in 2008 over other Republicans.

This coming Wednesday will feature a CNN debate from Arizona, after a bit of a hiatus from that season, and it may turn out to be the last primary debate of the cycle. The stakes will be high for all four candidates on the stage.

A week from now, I think the race in Michigan will appear to be extremely close. As a Romney supporter, I will be very anxious to see if he can pull out a victory there, as a two state February 28th sweep will net important delegates and momentum, which will make it harder for Santorum or anyone else to sustain a national campaign beyond Super Tuesday, which could cause Romney to effectively wrap up the nomination by the end of March.

If Santorum wins Michigan, the media, Democrats, and many anti-Romney types on the right will figuratively explode with glee and the talk will intensify in regards to "brokered conventions" and if somehow a Sarah Palin or a Jeb Bush will wind up being nominated after a Tampa/St. Pete floor fight, and all that talk will basically drive Romney supporters up the wall.

Regardless of what happens a week from this coming Tuesday, I think perspective is still needed. Romney will continue to be the delegate leader, and while a setback in Michigan may mean he will lose even more states on Super Tuesday and beyond, his campaign has reportedly been planning from Day One how to "win ugly", fighting it out in every contest all the way until late June.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves though.

Race for the White House

I had a lot more to say about the week in politics, that I was planning to quickly write a short while ago, but hearing the news about the death of Whitney Houston and wanting to listen to the coverage is distracting me a bit. So, this may be a bit truncated.

For political junkies and for the media, where a long Presidential primary contest is economically lucrative from a business standpoint, every little up and down of the 2012 GOP campaign gets amplified, and some events are given far more significance than maybe they really deserve.

However, perception moves news cycles in the age we live in. With that in mind, Mitt Romney went from having a great day last Saturday, to an absolutely horrible one on Tuesday, and now a very good one today. With the next contests in Arizona and Michigan not for another 17 days, it is a very positive thing for Romney and his supporters such as myself to enter this mini-news lull on a high note.

This past Saturday, as expected, Romney rolled up a big number in the state anchored by Las Vegas, taking Nevada with a majority of the vote. After Romney delivered a strong victory speech, second place finisher Newt Gingrich took the podium at a press conference, in which news reports stated he would begin to embark on a new positive angle to his campaign. It was anything but, as Gingrich unloaded on Romney and wallowed publicly in campaign despair. Again, I have to think psychological professionals could write books analyzing Gingrich's life and performance on the campaign trail. The media noted about how ill advised the Gingrich event and tone was and indeed it's been a horrible week for the candidate who won a large victory in South Carolina just three weeks ago.

Very quickly, I just want to make note about how openly Gingrich ascribed Romney's victory to the fact that so many Mormons live in Nevada. Besides the fact that Romney still would have won the state, according to entrance polls if not a single Mormon had voted, I find it amazing that Mormons can be talked about as a voting bloc in a way that would be completely politically damaging for someone to talk publicly about Jews, African-Americans or any other group.

I really want to hear more about Whitney Houston, who apparently died at a pre-Grammys event at the Beverly Hilton, so I will soldier on and try to finish this...

Last Saturday, before the Nevada results, I predicted that Santorum would soon surpass Gingrich as the "anti-Romney" alternative and that certainly happened as the former Pennsylvania Senator revived his campaign by sweeping non-binding, small turnout contests on Tuesday nights, winning by very large margins in Missouri (where Gingrich was not on the ballot and where a caucus will select delegates in March, in Minnesota, where Romney won four years ago, but finished a distant third behind Ron Paul this year, and in Colorado, by a very narrow margin which was supposed to be a solid Romney state.

In my view, the biggest story of the night was the way Gingrich had fallen at the expense of Santorum and how ultimately it could be a positive development for Romney, due to two continuing and competing anti-Romney factions, but the media all but declared the night a disaster for the supposed frontrunner from Massachusetts.

Due to the breaking Whitney Houston news, I will save for another week, a discussion as to what might happen if either Gingrich or Santorum dropped out of the race and what it could mean for the Romney campaign. As of now though, they both seem prepared to stay in, and Romney is probably in the somewhat ironic position of wanting to see Gingrich remain viable in the race, despite the poisonous rhetoric being thrown against him from that direction.

After the Santorum sweep, which I believe was aided by the votes of Evangelical Christians, coming on the heels of all the news of recent days involving the Obama Administration, the Catholic Church, same sex marriage, and contraception coverage mandates, the candidate has begun to surge in national and state polls. I think much of this is due to the fact that he has yet to experience any real vetting or much in the way of negative ads against him. I consider Santorum's support to be quite soft and I think he does not seem financially or organizationally in a good position to sustain a long national campaign.

Again, because of the news, I will save some more general election related aspects involving the Obama Administration and the news it has made this past week, especially what it could mean for the Catholic vote. I definitely have strong opinions on the issue, but for now, the GOP nomination contest is more pertinent.

So, Mitt Romney was once again in the position of needing a rebound, for the reason of getting the media to stop talking about how much trouble he was in alone, and he came to the annual CPAC Conference in Washington D.C. , not expected to make much of a splash.

On Friday, Romney gave a fairly well received performance, in which he curiously referred to himself as a "severe conservative" before the gathering, but the real surprising news came on Saturday, when he won the straw poll of the participants (who tend to skew quite young) by a 38-31 percent margin over Rick Santorum.

The news got even better for Romney later today when he was declared the winner of the caucus in Maine. Going in to the day, many believed Ron Paul would achieve his first victory there, but he finished nearly 200 votes behind Romney. A solid showing to be sure for Paul, who worked the state hard, but I believe if he could not win there, he is not going to win anywhere this year.

And that is where we now are. I think it is probably wise not to read too much into Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado which were bad for my candidate, or CPAC and Maine which were good, but all in all, Romney fans like myself can breathe a sigh of relief now today. He is still the frontrunner and can hopefully pull off a great showing in Arizona and his native state of Michigan.

I will have to cut it off here, despite having much more I could say about politics. What a great talent Whitney Houston was. I remember her first album so well from when I was a young child and I was a huge fan at that time. What a shame she struggled with all those demons for the past decade plus.

I believe the children are our future.... I believe in Mitt Romney and I believe in America....

Super Bowl XLVI Result

From Indianapolis:

New York Giants (12-7) vs. New England Patriots (15-3) Loss 1

Super Bowl Result 0-1 (o%)
Overall Final Results: 118-149 (44%)

Patriots finish 15-4
Giants win Championship at 13-7

Race for the White House

At this stage of the game, I would need to do daily updates in order to capture every significant development of the campaign season, instead of just once a week. Mindful of that, I am likely to continue missing many details of things that probably should be covered, so if there is anything that has not been addressed, please feel free to leave a comment about it.

Currently, we are awaiting results from the Nevada Caucuses, where GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney is likely to roll up a landslide victory, which will further cement the hold he has on winning the Republican nomination.

Tuesday night saw Romney's biggest win yet, as he won the Florida primary by 14 points, marking a dramatic comeback, from where he seemed to be just 10 days earlier in South Carolina. In spite of that, the spotlight that comes with being a likely nominee for President brings about all sorts of negative attention, from the media, from somewhat desperate primary opponents, and of course from the entire opposition political party. Governor Romney received a lot of criticism for all corners for a statement he made during a television interview this week, but it remains unlikely to have any effect whatsoever on the dynamics of the primary race.

Romney is still likely to be the GOP nominee, and it will be a nomination worth having. Democrats are of course enthused on recent government reports showing the unemployment rate continuing to fall, feeling that an improved economy will boost the prospects of Barack Obama for reelection. That is certainly a fair assessment, but cases of course can be made for the fact that the economy and the job market remain far less rosy than some wish it to be. Voters who will vote on the economy will do so based on what they feel in their lives and those around them, rather than politicians' attempts to frame a narrative or what the media says. I think we are still a far way off from the American people deciding the economy is in good shape or that Obama deserves credit for some kind of turnaround.

Of course, a lot can happen in nine months, and the economy will get much focus in the general election and internationally, there seem to be a lot of international matters that deserve more attention and could play a major part of the national campaign, especially as it relates to current and potential events in Iran and Syria.

In the meanwhile though, we have now reached the month of February, which is expected to be very good for Mitt Romney, starting tonight in Nevada, and then on Tuesday in some other states he is expected to win. We can take a look next week at the states that will vote this coming Tuesday, as well as final results from Maine, where the Ron Paul campaign seems to be making their biggest push for an upset victory.

Nationally and in the eyes of the media, Romney's chief GOP opponent continues to be Newt Gingrich, who needless to say has had a very bad two weeks. Running far behind in the final days of the Florida race, his campaign released a robocall to the state in which Romney was falsely accused of denying Kosher food to Holocaust victims in nursing homes. I think that was probably one of the most sleazy things ever to be said publicly in a GOP primary race. It is of course an example of how Gingrich continues to flail and wallow in self-pity on the campaign trail. I certainly was not surprised when he failed to call Mitt Romney to congratulate him after Florida, which would be typical campaign protocol, or to make note of his victory while on stage to his supporters. In those remarks, Gingrich spoke as if his election as President was a sure thing and pledged his "life, fortune, and sacred honor" to the effort. Gingrich in this campaign continues to remind me of Charlie Sheen in his meglomania.

Gingrich has a Las Vegas press conference scheduled for after the results are announced tonight, leading some to speculate that maybe he has had enough, but Gingrich has stated he will stay in the race until the convention. It might be close tonight for second place between Gingrich and Ron Paul in the Silver State. Some believe the former Speaker could potentially wait out February and win some southern states during March's Super Tuesday, but it seems more to me like his campaign is quickly running out of money and I think Rick Santorum will surpass Gingrich as the "conservative alternative to Romney" before too much longer.

One of the more intriguing developments of the week involved a former potential Republican candidate, who at least is thankfully now confirmed to not be planning a third party effort. Businessman and celebrity Donald Trump had decided to make an endorsement of a Presidential candidate in Las Vegas and media reports indicated that Newt Gingrich would be the one to get the nod. Gingrich is reported to have happily been telling this news to his staff on Wednesday night. However, as Thursday unfolded, for whatever reason, those reports turned out to be inaccurate as Mitt Romney was the one to receive the endorsement.

The two businessmen appeared together in a flash media appearance as Trump strongly endorsed Romney and the candidate thanked him, while also appearing anxious to leave the scene as soon as possible. I could not blame him for that, but I do not think it would have been smart politics to explicitly reject Trump's endorsement and it might help a bit with "very conservative" voters who like Trump's tough talking rhetoric. Of course, the no third party run thing was the most important aspect of it all.

The endorsement press conference was perhaps well timed as well though to change the previous day's news cycle in which Romney fell victim to a self-inflicted political gaffe while speaking Wednesday morning in an CNN interview. Romney was not the first nor will be the last candidate to misspeak, especially when they are likely heavily sleep deprieved, as I expected was the case here.

During the interview, Romney stated that his campaign was not focusing on the very poor or the very rich but on the "90-95 percent" of Americans who were suffering the most. It was clearly an inartful way to express a point but the full context of what Romney was saying in about 15 seconds was clear and would not be considered controversial. However, it is very easy for political opponents to take four seconds of a candidate saying something like "I don't care about the very poor" and using it out of context to paint an image of an out of touch wealthy person, which of course puts aside the fact that he also said "I don't care about the very rich" in the same sentence.

Romney was attacked by the left for insensitivity towards the poor, despite the fact that he said he would protect a safety net for them, and from the right for perhaps even believing in the safety net concept at all. I certainly do believe that is behooves conservatism to care about the poor and wanting to see them move from a life beyond government dependency and I have no doubt that Mitt Romney believes that as well. I believe he was tired and misspoke and will be more careful in the future in how he states things. Heaven knows Barack Obama and Joe Biden have said some very dumb things over the years.

Still though, it was a political firestorm that Romney did not need on the heels of a big win in Florida. I certainly do not think it is any kind of catostrophic event for a campaign, and all indications are that it has not had much negative effect for Romney yet both in terms of having a lead over his remaining GOP opponents or continuing to be extremely competitive in national matchups against Obama.

So for supporters of Mitt Romney, such as myself, these are exciting times and compared to our mood two weeks ago tonight, we have much to be happy about. The candidate now has Secret Service protection, which of course if things work out as planned, could be a part of his daily reality for the rest of his life (decades in the future hopefully.)

Let there be no doubt though that once these primaries end, the general election will be a hard fight. The incumbent's campaign, Democrat and liberal organizations across the country, and much of the mainstream media will be pushing very hard for "four more years" and will have no reluctance to attack or distort the life, record, statements, character, and intentions of Mitt Romney to do so.

Unfortunately for Democrats, my party seems poised to nominate the one candidate who may have what it takes to withstand all that they can throw at him.

Super Bowl XLVI

Overall Results: 118-148 (44%)

In 2008, the New York Giants defeated the New England Patriots in the SuperBowl, ending their quest for a perfect season. While I was not a fan of either team, I was quite pleased at the time to see New England lose to their underdog opponent. After all, hadn't Boston won enough titles?

Then later that year, America, dealing with an obvious bout of temporary insanity elected Barack Obama President.

Now, we are here in 2012, and while I am still not a fan of either team, things must be made different. The mojo of 2008 must be reversed in every way possible. Thus, go Patriots! Bring another title back to Boston. The future President of the United States, would agree with me.

From Indianapolis:

New York Giants (12-7) vs. New England Patriots (15-3)

Race for the White House

This past week has been another example of how dramatically events can change in Presidential politics.

Last Saturday, Newt Gingrich's sizable win the South Carolina primary was, as I expected it to be, greatly recognized in the media and the blogosphere as the kind of event that could indicate that the GOP race was headed for a very long and drawn out battle. There was talk about a broken convention and compromise nominees or late entrants (such as Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels who on Tuesday had delivered the Republican response to the State of the Union address.) Pundits also spoke as if second place finisher Mitt Romney had suffered a fatal campaign setback from which he may never recover. Much was made about how conservative votes in South Carolina and elsewhere had refused to accept him and that he amazingly ran behind Gingrich on the question of electability. Romney's problems were chalked up to supposedly poor debate performances in South Carolina and the issue of having not released his tax returns.

As an avid Romney supporter myself, I even started to contemplate scenarios in which Romney might not be able to surpass Gingrich's surge in time to win a victory in Florida (which is of course a southern state) and how he could ultimately rebound in February and win a protracted battle as the primaries moved nationwide.

However, things have stabilized (or changed, depending on how you look at it) so much that on this Saturday, we are back to the likelihood of Romney winning a solid win this coming Tuesday in the Sunshine State and the possibility of that victory making Romney the all but certain nominee. When polls in the middle of the week showed a very close race or Gingrich just slightly ahead of Romney, that might have looked like much better than expected good news for the former Speaker, but based on the buzz surrounding South Carolina and some early week polls, Romney supporters were thrilled just to look like they were still in the game. Now though, Romney looks significantly ahead.

Rick Santorum and Ron Paul will be on the ballot in Florida, but as the state is allocating delegates on a winner take all system, neither of them have much anticipation for a first place finish and have already started to think ahead, mostly to caucus states. In South Carolina, Santorum finished several points ahead of Paul. In Florida, the former Pennsylvania Senator had a decent week as far as debates were concerned and might have seen some supporters switch to him from Gingrich as the "anti-Romney alternative." That could be good news for Santorum of course, but ultimately even better news for Romney to see the opposition divide up once again.

As was the case in South Carolina, two debates this past week in Florida have had a major impact on the race. While they certainly benefited Gingrich in the Palmetto State, Romney got the best of the showdowns this week. After a debate Monday night on NBC in which the studio audience was instructed to not demonstrate their approval (even though it did happen slightly a few times), Gingrich complained about the stifling of free speech and said he might boycott any debates that did not allow applause. Of course, that would have to include what the Commission on Presidential Debates has planned for the general election.

A Thursday night debate on CNN did allow applause, but Gingrich found himself on the short end of the stick in that regard, as the night's big moments went to Romney, who forcefully took on his opponent at every turn, leading Gingrich to basically call for a truce during the debate because I believe he realized how badly Romney was cleaning his clock. The next day, the campaign which demanded that people be allowed to applaud, shamelessly claimed that the audience was stacked against them.

I could go on and on about how thrilled I am that this week has unfolded the way that it did. I was still generally confident but quite frustrated by what happened in South Carolina last Saturday and the first few days of the week. I expected Romney to turn it around, but it happened quicker and more substantially than most would have imagined. I think that demonstrates strong qualities both in the candidate and his political team that will serve them well, especially in the general election. Getting the tax returns out there this week (which showed that Romney paid over 40% of his income in taxes and charitable contributions combined) was a great way to stop being on the defensive. The issue of money donated to the Mormon Church was talked about, but not obsessively by the media.

Of course, the well funded Romney campaign was also able to very much hurt Gingrich on the airwaves in Florida, especially on the issue of the money received from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As to be expected, Gingrich fought back in harsh tones against Romney both on the stump and on the air, but was quite ineffective in making the case during the debates, which of course hurt the rationale of "a great debater" that had helped Gingrich to this point. Simply put, the tables were turned from one week to the next and from one state to the next in regards to which candidate spent the bulk of their time on the defensive.

The week is also noteworthy for discussion over Gingrich's grandiose plan to colonize the Moon by the end of his second term and all sorts of revelations of how Gingrich, who incessantly cites Ronald Reagan as an inspiration was actually quite critical of the Gipper at times during the '80s. Late in the week, the heavily visited Drudge Report website seemed to be on an all out mission to harm Gingrich and his campaign (and others such as Sarah Palin) has complained about a coordinated effort to take him down. There may never be proof of that, but there is believed to be ties between Drudge and Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades. If so, the Romney campaign quite effectively hurt their current chief opponent this week.

Gingrich is attempting to fight back against Romney by what I consider to be pretty trivial things such as taking a Democrat ballot to vote in a meaningless 1992 Massachusetts primary and perhaps slightly overreaching on an ad in which Gingrich referred to the "language of the ghetto", without specifically referencing Spanish, but having it be quite clear that is what he was referring to.

Just about every way Gingrich is trying to attack Romney is being used against him as Mike Huckabee is taking issue with Gingrich using clips of him attacking Romney from four years, and popular Senator Marco Rubio successfully forcing the Gingrich campaign to take down an ad in which Romney was referred to as "anti-immigrant." While Rubio has remained officially neutral (to the initial displeasure of Romney fans), his weighing in on behalf of the former Governor has done much to help and in a state with a significant number of Hispanic Republicans, the issues of ethnic politics this past week have seemed to favor Romney.

To summarize, it has been a strong week for Mitt Romney, who once again now looks poised to be the general election nominee, and after a particularly strong debate performance on Thursday, looks to many Republicans like someone who could be very tough for Obama to negatively define to the extent of a race being impossible to win.

However, Democrats are of course feeling good about watching a divisive GOP primary process unfold and I certainly cannot blame them for that. I believe the Republican Party will be able to unify itself before too long in order to take on Obama, but if I were a Democrat, I would have been doing cartwheels at the prospect of maybe getting to face Gingrich. It looks far less though today as if they will get to have that chance.

Obama, who will formally have a new Chief of Staff beginning the week, did deliver his State of the Union Address to a Joint Session of Congress on Tuesday night, and as to be expected, most liberals thought it was great, especially the appeals to populism and increased taxes on the wealthy, while most Republicans disapproved of large chunks of what they considered nothing more than a "campaign speech."

If Romney takes Florida by a decent margin and rolls through the contests in February, we may have a general election informally underway quite soon in which the lines of division will look even clearer.

While Obama (surprisingly) did not make any specific mention during the address, a moving portion of the evening was the presence of Arizona Democrat Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot and nearly killed a little over a year ago. On Sunday, she had announced she would be stepping down from Congress to focus on her recovery. Every decent American, of all political stripes, has to admire her and wish her well.

Giffords may have been present in the House Chamber Tuesday night, but someone else was missing. On Monday, news came down that Republican Senator Mark Kirk (who holds Obama's former seat) had undergone surgery after suffering a major stroke while in his home state of Illinois. The Senator is expected to be away from the Capitol for some time but is expected to make a full mental recovery, while it is sadly likely that he will be left with some physical impairments.

This shocking story hit home for me even more so as I have been around Mark Kirk quite a bit for almost the past dozen years, as he was my Congressman before his 2010 Senate election. I have met and have had discussions with him on a number of occasions and have devoted much time to helping him get elected to both Houses of Congress. It is hard to believe that such a healthy and youthful looking man of 52 years old, who continued to serve in the U.S. Navy could suffer such an illness and have his life perhaps be permanently altered.

On Election Night 2010, I got to see Kirk deliver his victory speech up close and he was clearly relieved and thrilled to have won a brutal campaign and embark on a new professional chapter. His interest and expertise in foreign policy were serving the Senator quite well a year into his tenure, and I feel very bad for what he is having to face.

However, I have no doubt that the person who has fought so successfully in his life to get to where he is, including a bunch of really difficult elections, will show that same determination into taking on his recovery and returning to work for the people of Illinois. Mitt Romney, whom he endorsed not too long ago, will need him on his side, if he is President.